


Flipping Stones

by misslucy21



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Alcohol, Childhood Trauma, Episode: s03e03 Backstopped, Episode: s03e04 Deadline, G and his subscriptions worth of issues, Gen, Identity Issues, Parent Death, References to end of S2 arc, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 11:10:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3726556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslucy21/pseuds/misslucy21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>G took his own deep breath and laid back onto the floor, staring at the ceiling. “You know, this makes a whole lot of things make sense.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flipping Stones

Roll away your stone, I'll roll away mine

Together we can see what we will find

Don't leave me alone at this time

For I am afraid of what I will discover inside

\- “Roll Away Your Stone”, Mumford and Sons

  
  


“So, how is he?” Michelle asked as she handed Sam clean dishes out of the dishwasher to put away.  It was Friday night and they’d just finished dinner.

 

Sam shrugged. “The same, mostly.”

 

Michelle nodded. “Not talking about it?”

 

“Heh. No.” Sam shook his head. “Hetty’s back, though. So maybe with things getting back to normal...”

 

“He’ll start doing better.”

 

“Yeah,” Sam said. He put a stack of dishes on a shelf as his phone buzzed. He dug it out of his pocket to check the message. It was G.

 

_*are you busy?*_

 

_*Not really. We get a call?*_

 

_*No. I need a ride*_

 

Sam frowned. G’d had his car this morning. Sam hadn’t driven him. _*you still at work?*_

 

_*No. Beach.*_

 

_*Which one*_ Sam moved away from the cabinet and glanced up at Michelle. “G.”

 

“He okay?”

 

“Probably. He needs a ride.”

 

“Okay. See you in the morning,” Michelle said, coming around the dishwasher to give him a kiss. “Love you.”

 

“I’ll be back,” Sam protested.

 

“Mm-hm,” Michelle said, skeptically. “Love you,” she repeated.

 

Sam sighed. “Love you too,” he replied and looked down at his phone where G had responded

 

_*Near the house*_

_*Okay. Be there in 30*_ Sam rolled his eyes at Michelle’s amused look and left the kitchen to grab his keys.

 

***

G was sitting on a curb block when Sam pulled into the parking lot by the beach. G’s car was not in the lot. Sam hadn’t quite thought it would be- G could and would drive himself around; it was Sam who generally felt safer driving G. But car trouble could have been an explanation.

 

“You good?” Sam asked from his open window.

 

“Yeah,” G said. He rocked to his feet and got in the car.

 

“Did you walk over here?” Sam asked. It was only about a 15 minute drive to this beach from G’s house, but it was close to five miles, walking. G wasn’t really prone to taking long walks. Wear himself out on the beach, yes. Or the climbing wall, or a basketball court. But going for a run or a walk was not ever going to be G’s preferred method of exercise.

 

“Yes,” G replied, buckling his seat belt.

 

“Okay,” Sam said. G was not giving Sam any clues as to what was going on here.

 

G sighed and leaned his head back against the headrest. “I didn’t want to be at home, because there is a bottle of vodka in the freezer and the bottle of tequila that Kensi got me for my birthday on the third shelf of the cupboard.”

 

“And you didn’t want to drink them,” Sam deduced.

 

“No, I didn’t want to drink them while I was alone. I would very much like to get drunk right now. It just...took me awhile to call you.”

 

Sam frowned over at him. G not wanting to drink alone wasn’t unusual. They all knew the hazards of that. G wanting to get drunk was...semi-unusual. But it was the taking awhile to call that caught Sam’s attention. “Did you wait for me to be done with dinner?” he asked.

 

G shrugged, but didn’t answer. Sam sighed. “You could have come with me and had dinner and...”

 

“No,” G interrupted firmly. “No, I could _not_ have come and had dinner tonight.”

 

Sam looked at him. He was not quite looking in Sam’s direction, but Sam could see enough to say, “Yeah, okay.”

 

They were quiet for a moment. “I mean, I know, it’s not going to solve anything,” G said suddenly.

 

Sam frowned. “Hm?”

 

“Getting drunk.”

 

Sam shook his head. “I’m not worried about that. If I was worried about that, we’d be talking about it already. No, G, if you want to get plastered, I will help you do that. Not a problem.”

 

“Okay.” G’s shouldered relaxed incrementally.

 

They pulled into G’s driveway and went into the house through the kitchen door. Sam investigated G’s fridge as G made sure the house was exactly the way he left it. Eggs, beer, orange juice, mustard, a takeout container that proved to house a science experiment, ham and cheese. Sam threw away the science experiement as G padded back into the kitchen. He’d shed his boots and socks someplace and changed his shirt.

 

“Did you have dinner?” Sam asked. He wasn’t letting G start drinking on an empty stomach. G shrugged, which was as good as a no. “Eggs or a sandwich?”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“Eggs or a sandwich,” Sam repeated.

 

G sighed. “Sandwich.” Sam went back to the fridge to get the ham, cheese and mustard. “I can do it.”

 

“Just sit down.” G rolled his eyes as he pulled himself up to sit on the counter as Sam made him a sandwich. “Here.”

 

“Thanks,” G said, more or less automatically. He wolfed it down in a way that suggested that he hadn’t known he was hungry until he started eating.

 

“More?” Sam asked.

 

“No,” G said, hopping down from the counter. He turned and pulled a juice glass out of the cupboard and motioned towards Sam with it.

 

“Yeah, I’ll take a little,” Sam agreed.

 

G nodded and pulled down a second glass. He went to the freezer and pulled out the vodka. One glass got about a shot’s worth of vodka. The other got filled half way. G put the vodka back in the freezer and got the orange juice from the fridge. He filled the smaller glass the rest of the way with the orange juice and handed it to Sam.

 

“Thanks,” Sam said. G nodded and put the orange juice away. He picked up the fuller glass and wandered out into the living room.

 

Sam followed and waited for G to settle himself on the floor before sliding down the nearby wall to sit. He sipped his screwdriver and tried not to wince at the fact that G had just drank down about two shots worth of vodka in one go without flinching. At least it was only 80 proof and not 100 proof.

 

G turned himself to face Sam and very carefully set the glass down. “She knew my mother.”

 

“I’m sorry?” Sam needed some antecedents with that sentence.

 

“Hetty. Knew my mother.”

 

Sam blinked and took another sip of his drink. “She did?”

 

“Yup. My... _Clara_ ,” G said, very carefully pronouncing the name. He wasn’t slurring yet, but Sam could tell he wanted to be so precise with that name. “was in the CIA.”

 

“With Hetty.”

 

“Yes.” G nodded, and took another large sip of vodka. Then he proceeded to give Sam a story that G had clearly rehearsed multiple times in his head. Probably while waiting for Sam to finish dinner. Sam was pretty sure it was the Reader’s Digest version, but it was more than enough to get the picture of what had happened and why G was drinking vodka like water.

 

“Oh.” Sam said, unintelligently, when G stopped talking.

 

“Yes. _Oh_.” G said, nodding slowly. He drained his glass and gave Sam a slightly wary look.

 

Sam wasn’t entirely sure how to react. On one hand, he was furious, because Hetty had _known things_ and never told G. On the other, G would probably react Very Badly to Sam being angry right now, so that was going to have to wait. He took a deep breath, another sip of his drink and made his shoulders relax.

 

G took his own deep breath and laid back onto the floor, staring at the ceiling. “You know, this makes a whole lot of things make sense.”

 

“Yeah? Like what?” Sam knew a straight line when he saw one.

 

G was quiet for a second, but it was a gathering thoughts quiet, not an “I’m not answering” quiet. “Okay, so, I wanted to get my drivers’ license when I turned 16, right? Because that’s what everyone does and it’s the first step to getting out of the system.” He tilted his head to look at Sam. “When you’re 16, you can be legally emancipated, but you’ve got to be able to prove you can support yourself, so you need a job on the books, and you need ID to get that kind of job.”

 

“Sure,” Sam nodded.

 

“Right,  so like, a month or two before my birthday, I go to my social worker to get my papers so I can get my permits. Except my social worker can’t find my birth certificate. That happens- I knew other people who didn’t have their birth certificate on file at DFS. There’s a form that they fill out and send to the State and the State sends you another copy of your birth certificate. It takes like 6 weeks or something, but it’s not a big deal”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Except, two and a half months later- after my birthday- my social worker gets something from the State that says they have no record at all of my birth certificate. They can’t find anyone with either the first name or last name Callen born on my birthday in 1970.  In fact, there’s no one with my birthdate that they can reasonably match to me at all.”

 

“Ahh,” Sam said.

 

“Right. _Because I wasn’t born in California_. Or the United States, even. And that’s also when I found out they’d made up my birthday.”

 

“They made up your birthday?”

 

“Yeah. My social worker was pretty new, so she took it to her boss and her boss said something like, well, of course they can’t find his birth certificate. That’s not his birthdate. We don’t know his birthdate.”

 

“So, they just gave you one?”

 

“I think it was the day I entered foster care. They just wrote that date down on the paperwork and added the year.”

 

“Wait, so are they sure about the year?” Sam blinked.

 

“Pretty sure. There were x-rays at one point. I remember that. Those’ve got a...” G waved his hand to indicate he couldn’t find the right word.

 

“Margin of error,” Sam supplied.

 

“Yeah. That. But those and my teeth, they figured I was 5, and it was 1975, so 1970.”

 

“You probably didn’t have your 6 year molars yet.”

 

“Guess not.” G was quiet. “I was pissed, though.”

 

“When?”

 

“When they couldn’t find my birth certificate. Thought I’d get my name. And my parents.”

 

Of course he would have. Sam closed his eyes a second. First in a very long string of disappointments.  “Yeah.”

 

“Nothing’s easy, right?”

 

“No. Nothing’s easy,” Sam agreed. They were quiet a moment. “Hey, wait. If they didn’t have your birth certificate, how’d you get your drivers’ license?”

 

“They write you a letter that says they can’t find your birth certificate. And you take that to court and get an affidavit that says you were really born.”

 

“Because standing there isn’t proof enough.”

 

“Yeah.” G laughed. “It would have actually been easier to get a passport than my drivers’ license. I found that out later.”

 

“Huh,” Sam said. “That makes me feel safe.”

 

“Passports are easy, you know that,” G looked at Sam and rolled his eyes.

 

Sam snorted.

 

“Hey,” G said, suddenly rolling to sit up. “I guess this means I’m probably an illegal immigrant.”

 

“Not necessarily,” Sam said.

 

“No, but they clearly thought I’d been born in the US,” G said. “And issued me documents based on that.”

 

“Good point,” Sam said. He watched G’s body sort of wobble. “Put your head back down before you fall over.”

 

“Not gonna fall over,” G said. His words were slurring just a little bit now. But he laid back down. “That’s kinda funny though.”

 

“What?”

 

“Me as an illegal.” G waved a hand at his body. “I mean. Not what people think of.”

 

Sam laughed. “No, not really.”

 

“Wonder how I got here anyway,” G mused. “I didn’t get here on my own. I was, like, three.”

 

“Hetty didn’t know?”

 

“Nope. Said no one knew. And I can’t remember anything after the beach. Been trying.”

 

“And I bet no one had any records of who left you in foster care,” Sam surmised.

 

“Orphanage,” G said.

 

“Hm?” Sam asked.

 

“Was at an orphanage first. I didn’t used to remember anything before that. But Hetty found me and got me into foster care instead.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Must not have been there that long. Seems like it was longer.”

 

“Well, you were little. And probably...confused.”

 

“Yeah,” G agreed. He squinted at the ceiling, apparently trying to think something through. “I don’t think I spoke English,” he said, finally. “When I got there.”

 

“Your...Clara would have known English,” Sam pointed out.

 

“Yeah, but she was deep under. She wouldn’t have spoken it to us. Too dangerous. We probably weren’t called Callen, either. That would have been even more dangerous.”

 

“Good point.”

 

“I don’t know what she called us, though. I can’t...you know, Amy never sounded right?”

 

“The woman you met who knew your sister?”

 

“Not her. Amy’s name. It never sounded right. I know I didn’t even remember I had a sister, but when she said her name was Amy, that wasn’t right.”

 

“Maybe it was a name she was given when you came to the US?”

 

“Yeah.” G said. “The ‘m’ sound is right. Em fits. Emilia, maybe.”

 

“Would that be a Romanian name?”

 

“Mm-hm.” G said, vaguely. “Could be anyway.”

 

“And your name with a G,” Sam said.

 

“Maybe. You know, I wondered once if someone wrote it down and the paper got torn or messed up and my first name doesn’t even start with a G and it’s my middle name? If all they had was the initial? And maybe that’s why I can’t remember it, because I mean, do you know your middle name when you’re that little?”

 

“Sometimes,” Sam said. “I’m trying to remember when the kids were sure of theirs. Kindergarten, maybe.”

 

“Yeah. And I was littler than that.”

 

“And if they gave you a different name, and you were already confused...”

 

“Yeah. And I, I used to get in trouble for talking, I remember that, so I stopped.”

 

“For talking back?”

 

“No, just for talking,” G frowned. “At the orphanage. When I said something, they’d get mad at me. Probably I didn’t know English yet and they were trying to make me learn.”

 

“Because yelling at little traumatized kids is a great way to teach them things.”

 

G shrugged. Sam decided that yet another round of reframing G’s acceptance of things that happened to him as being acceptable because they happened to _him_ , where they wouldn’t be acceptable if they happened to anyone else was probably going to be futile tonight. It usually was, anyway.

 

“She was in the cold for six years,” G said, apparently ready to change that subject.

 

“Clara?”

 

“Yeah. Hetty said everything was fine and then suddenly she went dark. Betcha she got pregnant.”

 

“That would make sense,” Sam said.

 

“Yeah. She got pregnant, with Amy, and she knew they’d snatch her back and she, she didn’t want to go. Maybe she wasn’t done yet.”

 

“Maybe she fell in love,” Sam suggested.

 

“Maybe. So, she’s gone dark and things are fine and then, what, he leaves her? With two kids?”

 

“Or maybe he died,” Sam said, very, very gently. More reframing- he’d been trying for years to tweak G’s perspective on being abandoned by his parents. Some days G was receptive. Some days, not so much.

 

“Or maybe he died,” G sighed. “Anyway, she’s got two kids and hell yeah, I’d rather get my kids back to the States than be on my own in the USSR in the early 70s.”

 

“It fits,” Sam admitted.

 

“Yeah. ‘Cept it went to shit and...and then what?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Me either.” G curled up on his side and shut his eyes.

 

“Are you going to fall asleep there?”

 

“You’re the one with the thing about beds, not me.”

 

“I am not the one who was bitching about how low the seats in the car are every morning because his back was spasming from sleeping on the floor.”

 

“Yeah, all right,” G said, shoving himself up to sitting. “You going?”

 

“Depends on if you want Michelle to be right.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“She told me she’d see me in the morning.”

 

“When is she ever not right?” G asked. It was as good as an invitation as Sam was going to get. Sam watched G climb to his feet and stand very still for a moment as he adjusted to the altitude change. G wasn’t all that drunk, but drunk enough to be a bit wobbly. He slumped off to the bathroom. Sam listened for a moment, but there weren’t any retching sounds, so he picked up the glasses and took them to the kitchen to rinse them out. He got down a clean glass and filled it with water, then dug through the drawer where G kept his aspirin and whatnot. There was aspirin and Tylenol, neither of which Sam was going to give someone who’d been drinking on a mostly empty stomach. He rummaged a bit further and found a dusty, unopened bottle of multivitamins that Kensi had pushed on G during one of her infrequent healthy eating kicks. Sam had no idea why G had kept them- it wasn’t food, so throwing it away shouldn’t have been an issue- but the bottle said it had 100% of the full complement of B vitamins. That would be good enough for hangover prevention. He shook out a pill and took it and the water to G’s bedroom.

 

G had shed his jeans and was curled up in his nest of blankets in the corner of the king sized platform bed. He took the vitamin pill and the water without comment, but tilted his head when Sam retrieved another blanket and tossed it down on the other side of the bed. “I won’t wake you up?”

 

“Probably you will, but it’s okay. I don’t feel like dealing with the inflatable.” Sam had brought an inflatable mattress over and stuck it in one of G’s unused bedrooms months ago, because if he was going to stay over, he was not going to sleep on the floor. Getting G to buy the platform bed and mattress had been a protracted struggle that Sam wasn’t anxious to repeat; the inflatable was a reasonable compromise.

 

“Mm. Okay,” G mumbled, putting his head back down. “Gonna sleep.”

 

“Good idea,” Sam said, stretching out on the bed.

 

G did wake Sam up a few hours later. Sam heard him wandering around the rest of the house talking. He didn’t seem to be talking to anyone and he didn’t sound upset or distressed, so Sam figured he was probably practicing whatever language it was that month. He woke up again when G came back to bed, but then not again until the room was light. G was sitting up in the corner, staring out the window when Sam’s eyes opened.

 

“Hi,” G said, without looking down.

 

“Hi. Time’s it?” Sam asked, stretching.

 

“About 7, I think.”

 

“Okay. How you feeling?”

 

G blinked and looked over at Sam. “Fine.”

 

“Good.” Sam nodded. “So, pancakes?” Even if he felt fine this morning, pancakes after last night was probably a good idea.

 

“From the healthy place or the diner?” G asked, as though the answer to that question would make any difference to his decision.

 

“Don’t think the healthy place opens until 8,” Sam conceded. He could do diner pancakes today.

 

“Okay,” G said, consideringly.

 

“You ready now, or you want to shower or what?” Sam asked, when G didn’t move.

 

“No, right,” G said. He shoved himself to his feet and stalked unsteadily across the expanse of bed. “I’m moving.”

 

Sam shook his head and rolled out of bed himself.

 

G paused after pulling his jeans on. “Pancakes are good.”

 

“I know,” Sam said. He also knew what G wasn’t saying.

 

G nodded and led the way out.


End file.
